Chilled
by Anniehow
Summary: Pre-series. She was always going to surf. Now what?


For Dotfic, who requested cousins being cousins, pre-series.

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><p>Kono raised her leg slightly and then lowered it again just as gingerly. She undid the thick black velcro straps and then re-did them without either tightening or loosening them: the brace sat correctly on her knee (around, over, above and below) and the itchiness and the aches were there to stay. She wished she could cross her legs, but it was much too uncomfortable for now.<p>

"Here you go, 'cuz. One big ball of 'grape only'."

Chin came to sit on the bench next to her but her stupid crutches started to slide as soon as he brushed the wood, clattering to the ground and hitting him in the foot.

"Sorry," they said at the same time, Kono twisting down to pick them back up and Chin jumping up again, both hands occupied with large paper cones over-filled with darkly-colored shaved ice. Aoki certainly gave you your money's worth.

"Just... just don't worry," Kono said, dropping the crutches on her other side where they promptly slid down to the ground again. "The damn things keep doing that. Just leave them and give me the ice."

She grabbed her cone without looking at him, and yanked; of course the purple ball rolled right off and landed with a splat on her bad knee, streaking the heavy blue fabric of the brace and oozing under it and over her skin. She sat there stupidly for a moment, blinking hard and pursing her lips. She was not going to cry. She was not.

Chin, next to her, gave a sigh and plucked the empty cone right out of her fingers before substituting it with the still-filled one. "See, I _knew_ you were going to do that. I knew you wanted to ice your leg so badly, and a pack just doesn't get to the spot with all that stuff in between, does it? It's a brilliant solution: besides, blue on blue, it's not even going to stain, is it?"

Kono was bewildered enough that she forgot she needed to compose herself and turned to stare at him. "What?"

"That's why I got two 'grapes'. I don't like grape. Now eat your shaved ice, cuz."

She looked at the mess on her knee: never mind the blue-on-blue, it was darker and it was definitely going to stain, but it felt deliciously chilled next to her over-heated skin and fuck the brace, her leg was actually feeling something that wasn't uncomfortable for the first time in longer than she cared to admit.

"You knew my cunning plan all along, right, cuz?"

"Well, I'm a cop, you know. It's my job, seeing evidence and deducing facts." He nudged her with his elbow, and Kono spooned a bit of ice in her mouth, savoring the shock of cold.

"It's not going to be for long, you know," Chin continued. "I know three more weeks seem like a life-time right now, but-"

"It _is_ a life-time," she bit back, because Chin was her favorite cousin and possibly person (after Ian, maybe) in the world, but she wasn't about to let him bullshit her. "If I can't surf again, it's a life-time."

"Competing isn't all there is to surfing. Besides, Adams seems to think you'll bounce back, and he should know." Chin didn't exactly fidget, but he lowered his eyes and hunched his shoulders a bit.

"Ian's an idealist," she said calmly, staring at her ice as it melted in rivulets under the sun, "but I know what they say behind my back: better start looking for a day job."

"Who says that?"

Kono sighed. "No one, really. But I can put two and two together myself; between the therapy and the timings, and what happened to Jesse Stevens when he tried racing after _he_ tore his knee..." she shook her head.

"Well, maybe, maybe not. Too early to tell."

At this she smirked, and turned to face him fully on. He was grinning too. "Maybe we should get an expert's opinion. What about that doctor you're dating? Malia, is it?"

"Fourth date's a bit early to start asking for free medical advice for distant relatives. And how do you know her name?"

"Your sister told my mom, who told me- distant relatives? I thought we were o'hana!" She squealed, hitting him in the chest, causing the group of firemen hanging around the door of the shaved-ice shop to look at them. They gave two identical bland smiles back until the guys went back to ignoring them.

"Anyway, take her to Kainoa's barbeque next Saturday; everyone's _dying_ to meet her." Fireman, she thought, saving people, making a difference. Fire though... she wasn't a creature of fire.

"Did my mom put you up to this? Damn, can't even have some shaved ice in peace!"

"You aren't having any shaved ice, either way," she pointed out, giggling.

"I am, right now," he said firmly, getting up. He hesitated and looked back at her, his expression serious and thoughtful. "I always knew I was going to be a cop, and I wouldn't know how to be anything else. And I know you always thought you were going to surf and nothing else. But I also always thought you could be much more than that if you wanted. I guess now you'll have to. So maybe you'll have to be braver than me, because I don't think I could change... if it happened to me." He waited until she nodded silently, and then turned on his heel and marched back into the shop.

The ice on her knee had completely melted, staining her leg and the ground with a murky, strange spatter. Morbidly, she thought it resembled old blood on a crime scene, thought for all of the cops in her family she had never actually been on a crime scene. Instead of being repulsed she stared at it as she drank up the dregs of her cone.

Fire she could never do but blood... blood she could handle. "And," she said out loud, to no one in particular, "I'd rock the uniform."


End file.
